A benefit concert for additional pipes for the Hochhalter organ at First United Methodist Church will be held Sunday, May 31, at 4 pm.
Julie Brown will play works of Bach, Buxtehude, Guilain, Vierne, and Jim Scott. Contributions will help the church acquire pipes (including 32s) to expand the instrument's tonal capabilities.
First United Methodist Church is located at 1376 Olive Street, Eugene, OR. For information: 541-345-8764, or [email protected]
Hans Davidsson is general artistic and research director of the Göteborg Organ Art Center, GOArt, as well as artistic director of the Göteborg International Organ Academy. In 2001, he was appointed professor of organ at the Eastman School Music and project director of the Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative (EROI). In 2006, he was appointed visiting professor at the Bremen Hochschule für Künste, Fachbereich für Musik.
When the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester opened its doors in downtown Rochester, New York in 1921, its benefactor George Eastman made sure that the first class of organ students had facilities that were state of the art, and a superb faculty. In the early twentieth century, Eastman’s truly American vision of the pinnacle of the organ art even allowed that first class of students to choose whether to study “theatre organ” or “legitimate organ” playing. To meet twenty-first-century needs for organ education with the same energy, vision and commitment, Eastman has embarked on a program called the Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative, or EROI. EROI’s main goal has been to update and expand Eastman’s collection of instruments for the whole range of the organ repertoire, making it a global organ facility. EROI’s first major step was to install the largest Italian Baroque organ in North America in the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester in 2005. Its next project will be to restore the Skinner Organ Company’s Opus 325 at Eastman’s Kilbourn Hall to its original 1921 condition. The current phase, the Craighead-Saunders Organ, will be inaugurated in Christ Church (Episcopal) across from the Eastman School of Music on October 16 at EROI’s seventh annual organ festival.
The Craighead-Saunders Organ is a new two-manual, 33-stop instrument named after David Craighead and Russell Saunders, two renowned professors of organ at the Eastman School of Music. They will both be celebrated by faculty, students and alumni at the opening symposium of this year’s festival, including the presentation of a new biography of Russell Saunders by Martha H. Sobaje.
The Craighead-Saunders Organ is a scientific reconstruction of an organ from 1776 built by Adam Gottlob Casparini for the Holy Ghost Church in Vilnius, Lithuania, and represents a Baltic-North European building style from the height of Enlightenment-era Europe. The finished instrument is the result of a six-year interdisciplinary research project between GOArt (the Göteborg Organ Art Center) and the Eastman School of Music on the processes of eighteenth-century organ building. GOArt is an interdisciplinary research center at Gothenburg University in Sweden, devoted to the study of the organ and related keyboard instruments and their music. A basic idea shaping GOArt’s research environment is to study the organ not just as a musical instrument, but also as a visual object, cultural artifact, and technological construction, and to communicate its research results to students, scholars and builders. In this latest project, GOArt worked in collaboration with a reference group that included leading American organbuilders as well as key members of Eastman’s faculty. This reference group made decisions for the project by consensus through the entire design and building process.
The result is a new and fresh instrument that challenges us to listen to, look at, and interact with an aesthetic that hasn’t been experienced this way anywhere since the end of the eighteenth century. The instrument’s soundscape is made up of over 1800 carefully reconstructed pipes that have been voiced by Munetaka Yokota based on strict principles that follow the original instrument’s design and documentation. Its case, built following eighteenth-century methods, creates an object like a Baroque theater set, painted in egg tempera and gilded and hand-burnished by German experts and a small army of volunteers. The colorful instrument and its generously proportioned new timber-frame balcony will provide an opportunity to explore eighteenth-century vocal and ensemble music using a large organ as the main continuo instrument. The tonal resources will make it possible to explore traditional continuo registration practice in this repertoire for the first time in a century.
The Craighead-Saunders Organ’s potential to offer new perspectives on the music of J. S. Bach and his sons and pupils has inspired the two-day symposium at the heart of this year’s EROI Festival, entitled “J. S. Bach and the Organ.” This symposium, co-sponsored by the Westfield Center, brings together leading Bach scholars and performers from around the world. Highlights will include the 2008 Glenn E. Watkins Lecture delivered by Christoph Wolff, as well as a concert of Bach’s cantatas performed by members of the Christ Church Schola Cantorum and the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Players.
On Saturday the festival continues with a final symposium, “Reconstruction as a Model for Research and Creation,” co-sponsored by the Organ Historical Society. A natural continuation of the EROI Festival in 2007 (“New Dimensions in Organ Documentation and Conservation”), lectures and panel discussions will address the complementary process of documenting the original Casparini organ and creating the reconstruction in Rochester.
Rochester participates in the AGO Organ Spectacular
The 2008 EROI festival will help celebrate the American Guild of Organists’ International Day of the Organ here in Rochester. A Sunday afternoon program co-sponsored by the Rochester AGO chapter, “Organ Spectacular—An International Organ Celebration,” will give alumni and registered participants the opportunity to experience the wide range of Rochester’s growing organ landscape. This year, two new organs in Rochester will have their inaugurations during the festival. Paul Fritts has just completed his Opus 26 for Sacred Heart Cathedral, and George Taylor and John Boody the new Tannenberg-style organ, Opus 57, in Pittsford First Presbyterian Church. Throughout the day, other participating venues and area churches will offer open houses, mini-concerts, and/or organ demonstrations by resident organists and Eastman students. This will take place in cooperation with the Rochester AGO chapter. For more information and a list of events and locations, contact Nicole Marane, event coordinator ([email protected]), or visit the EROI (www.rochester.edu/EROI) or Rochester AGO (www.agorochester.org) websites.
The inaugural festival for the Craighead-Saunders Organ at Christ Church will take place October 16–20 in conjunction with the University of Rochester’s Meliora Weekend and the Eastman School of Music’s Eastman Weekend. Registration materials are available online on the EROI website. For more information on the Craighead-Saunders Organ and recent photos, visit <www.esm.rochester.edu/EROI/c-s.php>.
Spellings and capitalizations are all according to the original stop labels from the 1776 Casparini organ and the order is given according to the use of these capitalizations.
CLAVIATURA PRIMA
BOURDUN. á 16.
PRINCIPAL. á 8.
HOHLFLAUT. á 8.
QVINTATHON. á 8.
Octava Principal. á 4.
Flaut Travers. á 4.
Super Octava. á 2.
Flasch Flot. á 2.
Qvinta. á 5.
Tertia. á 1 3/5
Mixtura. á 5. Choris.
Trompet. á 8.
Claviatura Secunda
PRINCIPAL. á 4.
IULA. á 8.
Principal Amalel. á 8.
Unda Maris. á 8.
Flaut Major. á 8.
Flaut Minor. á 4.
Spiel Flet. á 4.
Octava. á 2.
Wald Flot. á 2.
Mixtura. á 4. Choris.
Vox Humana. á 8.
Dulcian. á 16.*
PEDAL
Principal Bass. á 16.
Violon Bass. á 16.
Full Bass. á 12.
Octava Bass. á 8.
Flaut & Quint Bass. á 8.
Super Octava Bass. á 4.
Posaun Bass. á 16.
Trompet Bass. á 8.
*This position was never occupied on the original windchest.
There is no information preserved about the type and pitch of the reed stop once planned for this position. The Craighead-Saunders Organ has a Dulcian 16?.
Accessories
Ventil ad Claviaturam Primam.
Ventil ad Claviaturam Secundum.
Ventil Pedall.
2 Tremulants
BEBNY. (Drum)
Vox Campanarum (Glockenspiel)
Gwiazdy. (Cymbelstern)
Kalilujactgo. (Calcant)
Shove Coupler (Claviatura Secunda to Claviatura Prima)
Pedal to Claviaturam Primam Coupler
Compass: Manuals: C–d3; Pedal: C–d1
The Organ Historical Society held its forty-second annual convention in Portland, Oregon, from Sunday, July 13, through Saturday, July 19. Here are, first, a kind of organ travelogue and, secondly, some broader considerations evoked by the organs and the playing.
Convention headquarters was the Best Western Rose Garden Hotel, across the Willamette River from downtown Portland. Accommodations were certainly adequate, as was transportation. So was the food, when we finally got it. Future convention leaders really must insist to caterers who are seemingly geared for bar mitzvahs and weddings that there be four food-serving lines, and if possible a single seating. Only in this way can 200 OHS convention-goers keep to their tight schedule of organ demonstrations and bus rides, and possibly have the chance of a short walk before the next scheduled activity. It is also worth noting that as the OHS ages so do its members; it is cruel to keep the oldest of them standing a long time in line. Because of a disagreement between the hotel and the convention leadership, the exhibits and evening social hour had to be transferred to the shop of organ-builder Richard Bond, with a shuttle bus. Later the René Marceau shop was opened for a social hour as well, but it appeared that the need of using the after-hours bus resulted in lower attendance. In general, the painstaking, thoughtful southern hospitality of the 1989 New Orleans and 1993 Louisville conventions remains an ideal well worth keeping in mind. But on to the music.
The convention opened at 3 pm on Sunday the 13th, with Michael Barnes playing the 1870 Derrick-Felgemaker "portable organ," which has a diapason and a dulciana to tenor F, a stopped diapason bass that is always on, a manual super coupler, and a 17-note pedal coupler. It was played at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Portland, although Mr. Barnes owns the instrument. He was assisted by Susan McBerry, soprano.
The next event was Karl Mansfield's demonstration of the 1887 Cole & Woodberry at St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, Vancouver, Washington. (Vancouver is across the Columbia River from the Portland area. Portland is at the meeting of the tributary Willamette and the "really big" Columbia.) This II/23 instrument was rebuilt in 1996 by Jeremy Cooper of Concord, New Hampshire; it was relocated through The Organ Clearing House, as were many of the instruments heard at this convention.
It is noteworthy, indeed, that only two of the old instruments we heard at the Portland convention are in their original locations. It may well be that, as more old churches close, relocation is the shape of the future.1 It seems that there was an original stock of tracker organs set up during the later 19th century, but that few of these remain.2 The earlier stock of tracker organs yielded in time to electro-pneumatic instruments of varying merit and to the ubiquitous electronic substitutes. These, evidently, are yielding in turn to new tracker organs as well as to a significant number of old trackers transplanted from points east.
The third Sunday event was a program of Reform synagogue music presented by John Strege, organist and choral director, with Judith Schiff, soloist, and a vocal quartet, at Congregation Beth Israel, Portland, using a 1928 Reuter organ with five divisions, one of them a floating string division.
On Sunday evening, Douglas Cleveland presented a recital of French romantic and post-romantic music, including the entire second symphony of Louis Vierne, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. The instrument there is a 1987 III/89 of Manuel Rosales; one local organ enthusiast described it as being a true "magnet" for the organ art in the Portland area. Because of previously set travel plans I was unable to arrive in Portland before late Sunday evening; but I heard that Sunday's happenings were something for the builders, rebuilders, movers, singers and players--and their local fans--to be justifiably proud of.3
Monday the 14th began with a lecture on the organ history of the Pacific Northwest by David Dahl, professor of music and university organist, Pacific Lutheran University, and director of music at Christ Episcopal Church, both in Tacoma, Washington. He emphasized the importance of the installation, in 1965, of a large Flentrop organ in St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle, under the leadership of then organist Peter Hallock. This, along with other, smaller European instruments gave impetus to local builders to begin using north German models, and ultimately, according to Professor Dahl, to a climate of opinion wherein the first choice of the educated northwest organist will be a tracker organ. Organ "reform"--the term is deliberately used--is primarily a reform back to the northern 17th or 18th centuries.
The next two presentations provided examples for Dahl's lecture. The first was at St. Mark's Cathedral (Anglican Church in America) in Portland where we heard a III/44 by Werner Bosch of Kassel, Germany. We are particular indebted to Mark Brombaugh, who at the last minute substituted for the ailing Delbert Saman. Mr. Brombaugh also showed off a thoroughly charming Dutch chamber organ from around 1790, restored with new casework in 1982 by Frans Bosman.
Then we moved on to Beaverton, Oregon, and St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, where William Porter (professor at The New England Conservatory) gave a fine short program on an excellent 1994 instrument (II/20) by Tacoma Builder Paul Fritts. One sensed here a thoughtful and successful adaptation of the baroque model, designed for the large, hard-surfaced European church, to a not-so-large and rather dry American room. Professor Porter improvised, and played Bruhns and Buxtehude expressively, in a manner suggesting improvisation. One assumes improvisations listed in a program are pieces not written down (as opposed to made up on the spot); that, too, is doubtless authentic baroque practice. There are beyond question countless baroque masterpieces known now to the angels alone, but Professor Porter's pieces, known to us, too, were enthusiastically applauded.
On Monday afternoon James Hammann of New Orleans gave (handsomely as always) an all-Mendelssohn program on the 1890 II/13 Kilgen at St. Pius X Catholic Church, Portland, which organ was moved to its present location in 1985 by Bond Pipe Organs. This small but refined instrument (22/3' and 2' but no mixture) suited the Mendelssohn very well. On other occasions OHS audiences have heard Dr. Hammann play elaborate numbers; they would have been out of place here, so he offered the short Mendelssohn pieces instead.
Next came the demonstration of a similar instrument in St. Thomas Moore Catholic Church, Portland. In this case Bond in 1982 somewhat altered a 1914 Kilgen, but was constrained by the congregation to locate it in a thoroughly unsuitable place, a sort of organ cave behind the main altar. Portland organist Thomas Curry did the best he could in an interesting program of period pieces by Walter Spinney and Wenham Smith. But the sound fall-off from cave to nave was most regrettable; one hopes the owners will sacrifice some nave pews to better sound. Smith's variations on Beecher, one of the finest, most dramatic variation sets by a 19th-century American, thus lost much of their impact.4
After St. Thomas More's we went to St. Patrick's, Portland, where Dean Applegate first played briefly on a small English organ (c. 1875, unknown builder, two whole and two half ranks), restored by Bond. But the main attraction was Mr. Applegate's Cantores in Ecclesia, a choir of women, girls and boys who under his direction performed a program of 20th-century British music for treble voices. An excellent accompaniment was provided by Douglas Cleveland, who was asked to do this on short notice.
The final event of this busy day was also a kind of double-header, if not triple-header. In St. Mary's Catholic Cathedral Bruce Neswick played first the 1996 II/19 Martin Ott organ in the chancel and then the III/41 Los Angeles Art Organ (Murray Harris) instrument in the rear gallery. The latter organ seemed to be a kind of conventioneer, too, having migrated here from San Francisco, where it was heard in the 1988 OHS convention. It was rebuilt in 1996 with some additions by Bond, and Mr. Neswick's choice of (among other things) Brahm's Prelude and Fugue in A minor was particularly apt for showing it off. As a closer, this artist and Oakland organist and composer Ronald McKean improvised a passacaglia using both organs.
Tuesday, July 15, began with a lecture on OHS-sponsored European organ tours by executive director William Van Pelt. Then we went to All Saints Episcopal Church, Portland, where we heard Cheryl Drewes, the incumbent organist, give one of the most musically satisfying demonstrations of the convention--and on one of the most satisfying instruments. The Bond firm enhanced an 1892 Jardine organ, adding, subtracting and moving assorted ranks (now II/15); the result is dramatic, well suited to the room. Some observers did wonder a bit at Bond's penchant for enameling organ pipes white: they tend to remind one of objects not normally associated with the organ.
Oh happy day: the next presentation was also one of the musically most satisfying of the convention--David Dahl's demonstration of a five-rank, divided single-manual Hinners of 1915. This was in the Presbyterian Church in Aurora, south of Portland. In repertory ranging from Francisco Peraza (d. 1598) to Haydn, Dahl made skillful use of the divided keyboard. The church's pastor, Mary Sue Evers, made a very telling point about getting people to play it: if they got a decent though small pipe organ they stood a much better chance of getting a credible musician for their worship. After hearing the Hinners we heard an excellent lecture on the Hinners firm by Allison Alcorn-Oppedahl. Her remarks had the considerable merit not only of discussing the Hinners instruments, but of incorporating many more social-science reflections than remarks by organ historians usually do. Hinners organs were cannily marketed to a market that came (the small, usually rural church) and then went.
After an ice-cream social and a longish bus ride to Vancouver, Washington, we next heard Marilyn Kay Stulken ably demonstrate a one-manual, eight-rank Moline organ of 1879. Since this organ did not have a divided keyboard, Ms. Stulken made very creative use of a stop-puller assistant; her selections ranged from John Redford to Johannes Brahms, and this little 8-4-2' instrument handled them remarkably well, provided one overlooked some problems of tuning temperament. The final event of the day was also in Vancouver, at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, where Paul Klemme played organ solo numbers and accompanied trumpeter Gerald Webster on a II/17 W. K. Adams' Sons (Providence, RI, 1890), rebuilt and modified by Bond (1985).
Wednesday, July 16, opened with the annual meeting of the Society, presided over by outgoing president Kristin Farmer. We were encouraged to hear that the OHS is in good financial shape, but reminded--friends of the OHS, take note--that a substantial and necessary part of the Society's income comes from book, score and CD catalogue sales. The OHS now has a web page. When the ballots had been counted Barbara Owen emerged as the new president, with Scot Huntington as vice-president, and Michael Barone, Lois Regestein and Peter Sykes as new board members. Michael Barone, producer of the public radio series Pipedreams, also received the Distinguished Service Award. The 1997 Biggs fellows (recipients of an award designed to aid in attending a first OHS convention) were Joseph McCabe of Buffalo and Nicole Bensoussan of San Diego, both of whom are seventeen. Next year's convention will be in Denver (June 21-27), and that of 1999 in Montréal.
After the meeting we went to Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Portland, to hear an 1885 II/12 instrument, builder unknown, rebuilt with additions by Bond. Perhaps because of excessive carpeting and its location under an arch, it sounded rather thin. Where there seems to be a problem with the marriage of a relocated organ--or any organ--and its church the listener must, of course, take into consideration that the OHS are often an SRO crowd of sound-absorbers. The scheduled demonstrator, William Schuster, was detained, and while we awaited his arrival David Dahl accompanied an impromptu hymn-sing. Mr. Schuster's billing of four slight pieces by André Fleury as "An Organ Symphony" rather stretched a label. (It should be noted in passing that Fleury composed two real symphonies.)
Next stop was St. Ignatius Catholic Church, also in Portland, where Timothy and Nancy Le Roi Nickel presented a duet program on a (now) II/17 from around 1880, builder unknown, rebuilt in 1901 by Kilgen and rebuilt again in 1982 by Bond, with notable additions. The duet players did well, but they might wish to consider whether what is executed as a duet actually sounds like a duet, that is, with two real musical contributors in it. In piano duet-playing this is more readily evident, but the many levels of organ pitch tend to produce many notes but not necessarily the impression of two executants.5 Alas, our players were assigned a gallery organ, and part of the fun of duets is seeing them done.
Next came Grant Edwards's demonstration of the instrument in the Presbyterian Church at Milwaukie, an 1898 Pilcher rebuilt to II/13 by Bond in 1992. It is, in its present reincarnation, a handsome instrument, placed in the corner of a kind of liturgical stage in a fairly reverberant room. Mr. Edwards made it reverberate, but he and other players might consider that the repertory the "little American organ" does least convincingly is the French baroque.
The afternoon ended with a roller-skating session at the Oaks Roller Rink, Portland, while Don Feely played the four-manual 1926 Wurlitzer, formerly in the Broadway Theater, Portland. But the Wurlitzer is out in the middle of the rink with no swell boxes. Here once more is an instance of an equivocal situation for the player, listener and reviewer. We have to be grateful the thing was done at all, that is, the organ preserved, and yet we can easily think of cogent reasons for doing things differently.
After supper came what many at the convention considered its finest event, the recital by Peter Sykes (Longy School, Cambridge, and New England Conservatory, Boston) on the 1883 Hook & Hastings II/20 located in the Old Church concert hall, Portland, and restored by the Bond firm. Player and organ were superb. The first half of the program consisted of C. P. E. Bach's Sonata 6, Mozart's K. 594 Fantasia, a "Canzonetta" by G. W. Chadwick, and Lemmens's "Fanfare." After an intermission came Mendelssohn's Sonata 6, two short chorale-preludes of J. S. Bach, and a rousing rendering by all of J. S. Bach's harmonization of "Jesus, Priceless Treasure." For the Old Church Society, Inc., Delbert Saman accepted an OHS Historic Organ Plaque. Not least in this instrument's attractions is the fine restoration of its front pipes in brilliant red, green, blue and gold. It is worth noting, too, that Sykes followed the old OHS custom of providing a handout listing the registrations used. Before this recital people were recalling with pleasure his 1987 recital in Newburyport; now, no doubt, they will also fondly remember this one.6
Thursday, July 17, started with a demonstration by James Holloway at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Castle Rock, Washington. The instrument is in the orgue de choeur, or chancel, manner, built in 1990 by Frans Bosman, II/15 with additions prepared for. The 8' foundations together were delightfully clear. As for the tutti, all this organ needs is a "French" room; the whole ensemble (at least to this listener) tended to split into its elements, though again one must consider the acoustical effect of an SRO crowd.
The next demonstration was by James Denman, at Epiphany Episcopal Church, Chehallis, Washington. The organ was a II/10 Lancashire-Marshall of 1895, renovated in 1979 by the late Randall McCarty. In the same town we heard an 1890 Koehnken & Grimm, II/12, restored by Huestis & Associates and S. L. Huntington & Co. in 1993. The demonstrator was Joseph Adam. The silver pipes stenciled in crimson and dark green and the butternut casework were particularly handsome.
After lunch we traveled to Cathlamet, Puget Island, where in Our Savior's Lutheran Church Jane Edge ably demonstrated a fine I/9 Roosevelt of 1895 relocated from Katonah, New York. Her program included one of Mozart's church sonatas, K. 336, in which she was assisted by violinists Anne Edge and Phyllis Kessel and cellist Mary Flotree. Her program also included a community rendition of "Roll On, Columbia," one of the songs the Bonneville Power Authority hired Woody Guthrie to write in 1941 to popularize their dam.7
After returning to Portland we next heard a truly magnificent instrument, a 1916 E. M. Skinner IV/49, built for the Portland Civic Auditorium, restored in 1971-75 by the late David Bruce Newman, and now located in an auditorium at the Alpenrose Dairy. After a prayer and the singing of the national anthem we saw a short Laurel and Hardy silent film, quietly accompanied by Paul Quarino. Then came supper as guests of the dairy, and then a recital by Minneapolis organist Robert Vickery. In a series of mostly short pieces Vickery showed off a great variety of lovely Skinner sounds. Since this was an evening recital one could have wished for musically more developed numbers. Opening the chamber-access doors for the closer, a slight Firmin Swinnen toccata, seemed in poor taste; Skinner certainly did not aim for the threshold of pain with sheer loudness. We can hope that this fine instrument, created for a site significantly larger than its present home, will some day find a more suitable one.
On Friday, July 18, the first demonstration was by Charles Rus of San Francisco, using the 1904 II/13 Möller in the First Christian Church, Albany, Oregon. With its elegantly curving woodwork, this little organ is one of the most attractive pipe-fence organs I have seen. Mr. Rus' selections were well chosen to show off the instrument and very well played; they included a Buxtehude praeludium (pace temperament!) and what one listener called an attractive example of "90s American light," Three Pieces by Craig Phillips, tonal though dissonant, lively, thinly scored.
We next visited St. Mary's Catholic Church, Corvallis, Oregon, which has an 1892 II/20 Jardine rebuilt and altered by Bond in 1986. The demonstrator was Portland organist Paul Wood Cunningham. Also in Corvallis we heard another Portland organist, Lanny Collins, play a program of Orgelbüchlein chorales on the robust II/28 Noack installed in 1980 in the First United Methodist Church. Quite robust as well is the 1996 II/27 Bond in Cone Chapel (a large classroom, really) at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon, which was demonstrated by Marian Ruhl Metson.
One the way back to Portland we stopped at St. Anne's Chapel, Marylhurst College, where Tamara Still demonstrated a fine large Bozeman instrument, built in the French romantic style in 1994, III/37 with additional ranks prepared for, incorporating many ranks from a 1901 Hutchings-Votey. Back in Portland we were treated to another of the especially satisfying musical happenings of the convention, a demonstration by Michigan artist Mary Ann Crugher Balduf of an 1851 Henry Erben organ, which is in the "Chapel Hall" of the First Presbyterian Church and appears to have been in Portland since some time in the 1860s. With expert, split-second assistance from stop-puller Brian Buehler, Ms. Balduf used the one manual and six ranks with great imagination.
Friday ended with a program of recently composed works, including some of his own, performed by Ronald McKean on the 1996 II/37 Bond instrument (incorporating many pipes from an 1881 John Bergstrom) in Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Portland. The rich plenum includes a seven-rank mixture on the great--this in a high-ceilinged, reverberant hall. This instrument and the one in All Saints Episcopal Church were among the favorite Bond instruments heard. The presence in the pews of little plainsong hymnals (Liber Cantualis) suggested the possibility of alternatim literature involving the whole assembly, but that was not to be. Too bad, since so much baroque organ music (and Boëly, too) was meant to be used that way.
The last day of the convention, Saturday, July 19, started off pleasantly with Will Headlee's demonstration of the 1913 II/18 Hinners in St. Charles Church, Portland. The attractive and reverberant room let shine what elsewhere might have been a rather bland instrument.8 Next we took a longish trip south to Mt. Angel Benedictine Monastery, in a striking hilltop setting, where of course we sang Engelberg and where Beverly Ratajak demonstrated two instruments. The 1966 II/16, built by Martin Ott for the monks' choir, was meant to accompany their sung office, which we heard it do, but its sound does not carry well into the nave. This is doubtless why the abbey has commissioned the Ott firm to begin, in 1998, a three-manual tracker in the rear gallery. Also heard was a delightful little three-rank instrument, now in a meeting hall, built in 1896 by one Joseph Speldrich, a dairy farmer working for the monastery. After a stop at the Eola Hills Winery we heard Barbara Baird of the University of Oregon, Eugene, demonstrate the 1972 Ahrend IV/51 in Beall Concert Hall at the University. The temperament is Werckmeister III, which gave Sweelinck's "Est-ce Mars" variations rather more sprightliness than they often get. One wished Boyvin's suite in the first tone had been alternated with a sung (or failing in that, a played in unison) Magnificat or Gloria, which would have presented the integral musical form.
Concluding the convention was the John Brombaugh instrument in Central Lutheran Church, Eugene, III/51, 1976, but altered by the builder in 1983, 1989 and 1992. The demonstrator was Margaret Evans of Southern Oregon State College, Ashland. The day ended with a round of applause for convention chairman Cliff Fairley and his colleagues, including program chairman Tim Drewes.
The Portland convention differed somewhat from many earlier OHS conventions. To be sure, the Pacific Northwest, like other large sections of the United States and Canada, simply does not have that many old organs. Given our national inclination to discard organs perceived as old, if they had fewer to start with, they now have even fewer left. Thus the 1997 convention heard, it appears, just about all the old organs--still in the original site, or transplanted--in the geographic area selected for the convention. Of particular note and a cause for celebration is how these old organs are loved and cared for; I did not hear a single organ that was not, it seemed, in a good state of repair. Many of the thirty-nine organs heard, however, were actually quite new instruments, or instruments that had been not restored precisely but rebuilt, so that even if this latter class of instruments contains more or less of old components, they are effectly new instruments.9 What we encountered in Portland, one might say, is along with organs an organ idea, an idea that has always figured in OHS concerns but that figured here more prominently. It is that tracker organs, often with a north German flavor, are the good organs, no matter what their age. One wonders if for some folks they are good for you like Saabs, Birkenstocks and benignly fertilized vegetables: when you get them you will be reformed.
The choice of organs to be heard in the Portland area inescapably tended to impress on the auditor, reformed or not, how tonally different organ-reform organs are from the area's stock of unaltered old American organs. As to choice of organs, we were led to wonder further how many admirable instruments might exist in the Portland area that are old, more or less, but just not trackers and/or in some manner baroque in tonal design. Of the thirty-nine instruments heard there were only three non-trackers, the 1928 Reuter, the denuded 1926 Wurlitzer, and, most importantly, the 1916 E. M. Skinner. Of course, if the number of unaltered old organs, whatever their type, were to be the criterion for holding an OHS convention in a certain area, and if that number were pegged to the level of the Northeast, then no convention would ever be held in Portland or other areas lightly endowed with old organs. That would not be good either for these areas or for the OHS at large. However, when a convention is held in such an area it would be well to aim for the greatest conceptual clarity attainable, and recognize that organ reform is not good organs tout court, but an idea, or complex of ideas, about what makes a good organ, and about which there remains some disagreement.10
The juxtaposition of truly old American with organ reform organs, the greater number of them being small to medium-sized two-manual instruments, leads to two further considerations.
First, one of the strengths of the Portland convention was that it offered the possibility of hearing baroque literature in other than equal temperament. Naturally, it sounds much better that way. Might we go a step further and ponder whether pre-equal-temperament literature sounds wrong played in equal temperament?11 I do not propose to answer that question, but several strategies come to mind. Might churches in a community or a denominational administrative area agree informally to offer different temperaments and literature? Or maybe the wave of the future laps on the shores of Cathlamet, where an interesting group of people with a one-manual instrument are considering installing another one-manual instrument: what if the second one were to be tuned in mean-tone? Some of the organists we heard seemed to think that "full organ" meant using most or all of the stops (and especially in passages where it wasn't needed, the 16' pedal reed). But might not a medium-sized organ, dedicated to the disciplined player, include alternatively tuned ensembles? In one of those tutti frutti OHS programs designed to show the prospective electronic-substitute buyer that a little American organ from 1895 really can play all manner of music, Sweelinck sounds "all right," but with a certain wistfulness one recognizes that he sounds much better out of equal temperament. The other side of this thought is that 19th-century instruments are better employed in doing 19th-century and later music, with judicious selections from the 18th century.
Secondly, a staple of OHS demonstrations--and properly so--is the program made of short pieces, miniatures. It shows off the possibilities of the instrument, and does it fast. Hearing a week-long succession of such demonstrations, necessary as they may be, does get you thinking. Specifically, is there a danger that a procedure for a quick demonstration might become a musical ideal, the notion that organ music consists of miniatures, either versets or dance-movements, or fantasias put together from short-winded expositions? As anyone familiar with the problems of the opera composer knows, whereas under driving emotion words contract, music expands. Music is naturally expansive, both in opera and in music history generally. In other words, the so-called symphonic organ and the invention of various sorts of playing aids resulted from a real musical felt need, and not from the invasion of the organ world by wicked engineers. One hopes that future convention leaders and players, particularly those entrusted with the longer, evening recitals, will show us more instruments and literature characterized by a certain expansiveness.12 (The Cleveland and Sykes recitals set a worthy example.) To be avoided is the impression that the OHS fancies little instruments that do little snippets of music, and do them sometimes in tunings that would make the composers wince. Such an impression would, of course, belie the actual breadth of outlook found in the OHS, which is thus a good reason for taking care not to create it. The organs are the stars, yes, but they shine brightest in a heaven of clear musical thinking. One of the best achievements of the Portland convention is that it stimulated thinking about the organ art.
Notes
1. Transplanted organs, often, are not spared the paradox that now affects so many old, now restored objects: all cleaned up and placed in rather antiseptic surroundings, they lose what Edith Wharton called the "rich low murmur of the past." Fast and Loose & The Buccaneers, ed. V. H. Winner (University Press of Virginia, 1993), p. 369.
2. In 1870 prosperous Portland had some 10,000 inhabitants. Cf. Judy Jewell, Compass American Guides: Oregon (Oakland, 1996), p. 42.
3. For the instruments see remarks by Barbara Owen and Alan Laufman in "OHS to Visit the 'City of Roses'," The Tracker XL: 1 (1997), pp. 6-7; and also Lee Garrett, "American Organ Reform in Retrospect," part II, The American Organist XXXI: 8 (August, 1997), pp. 74-75. For the convention programs of July 13 see "Dulciana's Diary," first autumn, 1997, issue of The Stopt Diapason (news-letter of the Chicago Chapter of the OHS).
4. My copy is found in W. E. Ashmall, ed., The Organist's Journal, vol. I (New York, 1889-90), pp. 53-60. The title page lists Smith as active at Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Church in Brooklyn and carries the dedication, "To the memory of a Great and Good Man." Beecher had died in 1887. Variation 8 is entitled "Funeral March on the death of a hero." So Smith took an upbeat view of Beecher's legal problems.
5. Robert Cundick's Three Pieces (Concordia, 1991) are a model of the kind of texture I have in mind.
6. Hook & Hastings installed five organs in Portland between 1872 and 1886. This is the only one left. There are those, this writer included, who think the Hook & Hastings instruments of this time (and a little before and after) are the finest of all American work.
7. Jewell, op. cit., p. 224.
8. The church furnishings here were turned sideways, so that the altar is now on what was formerly the "gospel," or left side of the nave. It would not always work, but this is certainly a thoughtful way of getting more of the congregation closer to the altar while leaving the organ in place. (In this case, however, an organ was relocated from another church to the space originally provided for a pipe organ.) In sum, this rethinking of the nave makes it a theatre as opposed to a pseudo-medieval hall.
9. Alas, two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, so 19th-century aeolines yield their chest space to upperwork. Still, there has from time to time been some debate as to whether aeoline-like ranks served as overtone-making "blending" stops and as such are integral to various registration combinations. In this view they are not just for giving pitch to the choir and additional piquancy to ministerial prayers.
10. Garrett, op. cit., p. 77, wisely comments, "The important thing is that builders from both traditions [tracker and electric action] are talking to each other in a fashion not known 30 years ago." In time this more ample, generous reading of organ history will doubtless become more widely accepted.
11. In time the organ with a 17th-century stop list and a 19th-century tuning may well be seen as a kind of compromise, just as some now view the more or less baroque stop list played with an electric action.
12. I do not mean recitalists should yet again inflect their graduation recital on the OHS, as has occurred from time to time in previous years; if they are going to expand something, let it be their repertory.
Performing History: The Italian Baroque Organ and Its Cultural Intersections
GENERAL INFORMATION
A four-day festival (22-25 October) of concerts, masterclasses, and paper sessions, marking the tenth anniversary of the installation of Eastman’s Italian Baroque Organ at the Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY.
